DI goes live as registrations for My Health Record reach 2.5 million

Written by Kate McDonald on 10 December 2015.

Diagnostic imaging reports from the Northern Territory are now being uploaded to the My Health Record (MyHR, formerly PCEHR) as consumer registrations for the system reach the landmark figure of 2.5 million, three and a half years after it went into operation.

Over 2000 diagnostic imaging reports in CDA format have been uploaded since the functionality went live at the end of October, Department of Health statistics show. The NT is also contributing specialist letters – over 7000 since that functionality was enabled in April – as well as emergency department and inpatient discharge summaries.

The amount of shared health summaries on the system is also growing, although numbers of the primary clinical document are still very low at just under 65,000, but there are now well over 250,000 discharge summaries on the system, with most public hospitals now routinely uploading them for registered patients.

DoH special adviser Paul Madden told a Primary Health Network (PNH) conference in Sydney last month that on average, 1500 to 2000 people were registering for the system every day, without any significant marketing.

Much of the recent movement in clinical document uploads has been driven by the Northern Territory, which is transitioning its My eHealth Record (MeHR) to the national system.

According to a report by the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) in August, the NT's system “validates the value proposition” of the national MyHR/PCEHR and has become embedded in clinical workflows.

Pulse+IT understands that the NT Department of Health has worked with IT systems integration specialist DWS to develop software that enables CDA documents to be created from disparate sources. It is also using the Health Identifier and PCEHR System (HIPS) middleware first developed by SA Health and Adelaide-based Chamonix and now licensed by NEHTA.